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User blog:Erevan/Assault on Haunted Castle pt 2
The morning after our narrow escape from the keep, we heard the noise of pursuit approaching the cave we were sheltering in; two wights were hunting down a dwarf, who was running from the castle in our general direction. We distracted and counter-attacked the wights, saving a dwarfess who had been taken captive by an undead patrol near the Mossybrook Mine and kept prisoner in the keep's dungeon. She told us about a secret passage she had dug her way into from her cell, which we could possibly use to free Augustus. She also mentioned that her party's blackmith had been removed from the cells; also that one of the goblins was routinely freed, taken along with a dwarf or second goblin, and the prisoners could hear screams all night. That one would be escorted back covered in blood and weeping. We used that passage to get to the dungeons, and Jarvis cast silence in the area to hide the noise of killing the ghast guards breaking the locks of the cell to let Augustus and some goblin and dwarf prisoners out. Unsure if our activity was detected, we had placed the immovable rod agains tthe door to the dungeons, and a good thing we did - soon a pounding began at the doors, and a flesh golem broke them down! While our hitters tried to fend it off, liquid shadows slipped into the dungeon to attack them from behind. I brought forth the orb of daylight to weaken them, and Ivellios and I took care of the shadows, freeing our companions for the main threat. Just then the dark spellcaster we had encountered previously in the keep's courtyard appeared behind the golem and threw a lightning javelin along the corridor, hitting Ivellios and zapping everybody else. Curiously, the lighting seemed to reinvigorate the flesh golem... Augustus, heavily injured, hid in a cell, and dragged Myrddans unconscious body in with him. I made a few very lucky shots and took him out before anyone else could react (3 natural 20s in a row). We continued hammering on the golem, and I nailed it with the killing shot. Ivellios darted out to get the wizards body, and was hit by arrows from some of the waiting skeletal archers. We decided to make a strategic retreat to the cave. There, we had to separate the irate prisoners and get a straight story on what had happenned: the goblin bonesetter, who had been captured from the Black Tree Tribe, was being possessed to make the golem. The dwarves said their blacksmith walked out every day and said he had dreamed of working at a forge - perhaps making armor? The oversized golem skeleton? We rested up and Ivellios scouted the castle as an eagle. We decided, after much discussion, to return to castle via the roof to check out a strange structure, and then infiltrate down. The structure appeared to be stables in bad disrepair; perhaps this was an outpost of the Altan Rangers? We went down one of the sets of stairs, and the first room we found was a warded alchemist's lab. Several of the party took minor damage, but Ivellios was excited to inspect it later. Next we found a reading room, and beyond that a large library guarded by skeletons, which we killed in a cone of silence (to be fair, I destroyed most of them). From there we moved into the next room and surprised three wights. We killed two fairly easily, but one escaped into a side room, and Myrddan followed it only to find it full of skeletons. He Shattered them, but more were alerted and ran from another side room to attack me. Jarvis Turned Undead, killing all of them but alerting the castle to our presence. Augustus peeked into the next room and found it full of skeletal archers and spearmen plus another undead paladin. These skeletons seemed to have custom made armor... Jarvis took some hits but popped most of them with another Turn Undead, Ivellios moonbeamed the paladin, and Myrddan shattered the rest of the skeletons. We all wore down the paladin to a point Augustus could detroy it, and took shelter in the officers baracks we had recently cleared. Category:Blog posts